ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Steel pipes rust and eventually fail. To preempt disasters, oil companies and others have created computer models to predict when replacement is needed. But if the models themselves go wrong, they can be modified only through experience, a costly problem if detection comes too late. Now, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, the […]
Category Archives: Nanotechnology
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Quantum research gets a boost at Sandia
October 24, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Department of Energy has awarded Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories $8 million for quantum research — the study of the fundamental physics of all matter — at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies. The award will fund two three-year projects enabling scientists at the two labs to build advanced tools for […]
Most wear-resistant metal alloy in the world engineered at Sandia National Laboratories
August 16, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — If you’re ever unlucky enough to have a car with metal tires, you might consider a set made from a new alloy engineered at Sandia National Laboratories. You could skid — not drive, skid — around the Earth’s equator 500 times before wearing out the tread. Sandia’s materials science team has engineered […]
Large supercrystals promise superior sensors
August 1, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Using an artful combination of nanotechnology and basic chemistry, Sandia National Laboratories researchers have encouraged gold nanoparticles to self-assemble into unusually large supercrystals that could significantly improve the detection sensitivity for chemicals in explosives or drugs. “Our supercrystals have more sensing capability than regular spectroscopy instruments currently in use, just like a […]
Generating electrical power from waste heat
July 9, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Directly converting electrical power to heat is easy. It regularly happens in your toaster, that is, if you make toast regularly. The opposite, converting heat into electrical power, isn’t so easy. Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories have developed a tiny silicon-based device that can harness what was previously called waste heat and […]
Sandia light mixer generates 11 colors simultaneously
June 28, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A multicolor laser pointer you can use to change the color of the laser with a button click — similar to a multicolor ballpoint pen — is one step closer to reality thanks to a new tiny synthetic material made at Sandia National Laboratories. A flashy laser pointer may be fun to […]
A splash of detergent makes catalytic compounds more powerful
May 30, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — Researcher David Rosenberg examines images of a white powder under a powerful scanning electron microscope. Up close, the powder looks like coarse gravel, a heap of similar but irregular chunks. Then he looks at a second image — the same material produced by colleague Hongyou Fan instead of purchased from a catalog […]
Magnetic nanoparticles leap from lab bench to breast cancer clinical trials
April 30, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories materials chemist Dale Huber has been working on the challenge of making iron-based nanoparticles the exact same size for 15 years. Now, he and his long-term collaborators at Imagion Biosystems will use these magnetic nanoparticles for their first breast cancer clinical trial later this year. The nanoparticles stick to […]
First 3-D printed wind-blade mold, energy-saving nanoparticles earn Sandia national awards
April 25, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories has won the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer’s national 2018 Technology Focus Award for designing the first wind turbine blades fabricated from a 3-D printed mold, which could dramatically shorten the time and expense of developing new wind energy technology. The labs also won FLC’s Excellence in Technology […]
Biologically inspired membrane purges coal-fired smoke of greenhouse gases
April 11, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A biologically inspired membrane intended to cleanse carbon dioxide almost completely from the smoke of coal-fired power plants has been developed by scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico. The patented work, reported recently in Nature Communications, has interested power and energy companies that would like to significantly […]
Glowing designer sponges: New nanoparticles engineered to image and treat cancer
February 26, 2018 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Sandia National Laboratories team has designed and synthesized nanoparticles that glow red and are stable, useful properties for tracking cancer growth and spread. This work is the first time the intrinsic luminescence of metal-organic framework materials, or MOFs, for long-term bioimaging has been reported, materials chemist Dorina Sava Gallis said. Fluorescently-tagging […]
Nanotechnology experts at Sandia create first terahertz-speed polarization optical switch
September 14, 2017 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Sandia National Laboratories-led team has for the first time used optics rather than electronics to switch a nanometer-thick thin film device from completely dark to completely transparent, or light, at a speed of trillionths of a second. The team led by principal investigator Igal Brener published a Nature Photonics paper this […]
Beating the heat with nanoparticle films
August 31, 2017 – 8:25 am
House and car windows that stay cool in the summer, warm in the winter ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It is a truth acknowledged throughout much of the world, that a car sitting in the sun on a summer’s day must be sweltering. However, a partnership between Sandia National Laboratories and Santa Fe, New Mexico-based IR Dynamics […]
Clean water that’s ‘just right’ with Sandia sensor solution
July 11, 2017 – 5:15 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Water utilities have a Goldilocks problem: If they don’t add enough chlorine, nasty bacteria that cause typhoid and cholera survive the purification process. Too much chlorine produces disinfection byproducts such as chloroform, which increase cancer risks. The amount of chlorine needs to be “just right” for safe drinking water. The Environmental Protection […]
Better living through pressure: functional nanomaterials made easy
April 18, 2017 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Using pressure instead of chemicals, a Sandia National Laboratories team has fabricated nanoparticles into nanowire-array structures similar to those that underlie the surfaces of touch-screens for sensors, computers, phones and TVs. The pressure-based fabrication process takes nanoseconds. Chemistry-based industrial techniques take hours. The process, called stress-induced fabrication, “is a new technology that […]